Msgr. Paul V. Garrity
My barber told me that he thought that Pope Leo had recently reaffirmed the Church’s traditional understanding that male and female are the only ways that people exist in this world. I was struck by his interest in what our new Pope is saying and by his curiosity about transgender people. After all, he suggested, the Bible tells us that God made Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. Shouldn’t this be the end of the story? Isn’t God’s will clearly present in the Book of Genesis? My barber is probably not the only person who is asking questions about what it means to be transgender or trans in the vocabulary of the day.
Before talking about what it means to be trans, I suggested to my barber that we need to have a greater sense of humility when we begin to speak of the will of God. It is hard to believe that winning Megabucks is God’s will when most people do not. When great things happen, God celebrates with us. When tragedy happens, God cries with us. At its core, God’s will is ineffable. What we do know is that God only wills what is good and never what is evil. And all creation reflects the goodness and love that is God.
Before Galileo and Copernicus, everyone believed that the world was the center of the universe. This belief was rooted in the cosmology of the Bible. Everyone believed it was true until it wasn’t true. Today, many people believe that God’s will is revealed in Genesis and that one’s gender or sexuality is revealed at birth. Many others believe, however, that understanding gender and sexuality is far more complicated than most of us ever imagined.
Gender incongruence is not considered a mental disorder but a fact of biology. It is recognized as such by the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, among others. It refers to the distress that is experienced by people whose understanding of themselves does not match their assigned sex at birth. Trans people come to an experience of themselves through self-discovery not through choice. The notion that one’s gender identity is a choice comes out of an ideology that is not rooted in science.
Most people of most faith traditions believe that we are more than physical bodies. The vocabulary of souls and spirits captures this bedrock belief about humankind. “Ghosts” is a British comedy, now an American TV series of the same name. Its fundamental premise is that physical death is not the end to life. Ghosts from different eras roam a mansion that was purchased by a couple who bought more than they imagined. The humor of Ghosts complements our foundational acceptance of an afterlife while emphasizing the reality of death.
Whether souls live in bodies or bodies inhabit souls is a philosophical/religious question. Without disrespect for bodily life, however, these considerations go the heart of understanding trans men and women. Not unlike discussions around sexual orientation, debates about gender identity go nowhere unless there is an acceptance that gender is an awareness and a discovery and not a choice. Transgender people work to sync their bodies with their personhood, soul or spirit.
Religious fundamentalism drives a great deal of the controversies associated with sexual identity and gender. Misunderstanding that the Bible is a book about faith and not science fuels these debates. Culture protectors see these issues as threatening the future of civilization. What gets forgotten or lost is the simple fact that real human beings are involved. For people who are struggling to understand themselves in a climate of hostility, gender discussions are about life and death.
As these debates have entered the world of politics, they have become fodder for the culture warriors who are only interested in scoring political points. The result is a highly charged political atmosphere that makes reasonable dialogue impossible.
We are constantly reminded that we do not know all they we think we know or should know. This applies to issues of gender and sexuality, especially. Humility, openness, and genuine respect for all individuals are the necessary qualities that will help us navigate today’s complex terrain of gender identity and its many implications.
Msgr. Garrity is a Senior Priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former pastor of St. Mary’s Parish and High School in Lynn.
